Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos loses 52 kg in one year

Ibai Llanos drops below 100 kg: 52 lost in a year

On June 26, 2025, exactly twelve months after beginning his physical transformation, Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos stepped on the scale and saw 99.3 kg. He started at 152. The Basque content creator, one of the country's biggest influencers, launched the process on June 26, 2024, trinc the Kings World Cup victory, driven by a challenge from a highly upvoted comment. A year later, he boasts about the figure and the shirt: the same one he started with.

The numbers he has shared on TikTok are, according to his account: 123 videos documenting the change, 2 billion views accumulated, an average of 10 kilometers walked daily —about 3,650 kilometers total, including the Camino de Santiago— and 240 strength training sessions over twelve months. He began with four weekly sessions and has maintained five for six months. His worst recorded weight was 166 kg in 2022. The stated goal was to drop below 100. He achieved it by 700 grams.

How much weight can you lose in a year without surgery?

The quick answer is that it depends on the starting point. A body weighing 150 kg expends much more energy in any activity than one weighing 80, and a caloric deficit is relatively easy to generate initially. This explains why the first 20 or 30 kilos drop quickly and the pace slows down afterward. Ibai himself acknowledges being stuck at 101-102 kg for two weeks before dropping to 99.3.

The calculation he offers —4.3 kg lost per month— is consistent with what clinical literature considers an aggressive but sustainable rate for morbid obesity. The doubt hovering over such cases is always the same: is there medication involved? In the material reviewed, there is no proof of this, only suspicions thrown into the air. Those claiming he used Ozempic do so without providing a single data point. Those denying it also lack access to his medical analytics.

What is documented is his exercise history: there are videos on his channel where he trains with Topuria, and the declared walking volume —10 kilometers daily, every day— is not a Sunday stroll. It is over an hour and a half of sustained aerobic activity, accumulated over 365 days. The arithmetic does not fit the image of someone who collapses onto the sofa.

Forum skepticism: 'Losing 50 kg when weighing 150 is very easy'

The reception of the case in news forums has been anything but enthusiastic. A dominant current argues that the merit is relative: the higher the initial weight, the easier it is to lose the first kilos, and the real challenge begins now. "When you weigh 150 kg, losing 50 is very easy, even without getting off the couch," summarizes one post. The thesis has physiological basis, but ignores a detail: maintaining a deficit for twelve consecutive months, with the same shirt and routine, is something almost nobody does. Most quit by week six.

Another line of criticism points to the alleged pharmacological shortcut. Ozempic is mentioned as an alternative explanation, although no one provides evidence. Some go further and predict serious side effects —kidney problems, pancreatic issues, even blindness— without citing any source. This is the type of claim that should be treated as what it is: an unsupported suspicion, not a fact.

The third front is the most uncomfortable. Part of the material argues that the physical change responds to a business strategy: the public figure needs to stay in the spotlight, and the body is part of the product. "Ibai Llanos is a whore who owes it to his audience and is capable of suffering and renouncing his personality just to stay relevant," one user writes. The accusation has no proof, but connects with a broader suspicion: that everything a content creator does is, by definition, content.

Bariatric surgery as a shortcut: the case slipping into conversation

In parallel with the Ibai case, the material includes a discussion on bariatric surgery that illustrates the double standard well. One participant recounts the case of an acquaintance who underwent stomach reduction through Spain's public health system (Seguridad Social), saving themselves, in their words, "five years of serious gym work." Public intervention is justified when there is morbid obesity and associated serious health problems.

The response was immediate: "I would remove people who don't take care of themselves from social security and make them pay for the problem they created." The argument, repeated in many forums, ignores that morbid obesity is a chronic disease and that surgery is not an aesthetic whim. It also ignores that the patient in question, according to the account, works and pays contributions.

The counterpoint comes from direct experience: some recall that their first vvife had her entire stomach removed due to cancer and remained anemic for life, because iron needs the stomach to be absorbed. The conclusion drawn is that surgery is not a free shortcut: it is a functional mutilation with permanent consequences. And those who choose it as a first option often end up worse than those who try the long road.

The problem isn't losing weight: it's keeping it off

The most useful part of all the material has nothing to do with Ibai. It is the part that talks about relapses. "I lost 20 kg ten years ago, it took me about six months, and I regained it and got fat again in three months," says a participant. The statistics are relentless: most weight losses are regained within two to five years, not due to lack of willpower, but because the body has metabolic memory and the environment pushes in the opposite direction.

The explanation offered in the material is reasonable: diets are temporary processes that end when the goal is reached, and then the subject returns to the habits that led them to the starting point. The real change, the one that lasts, is not a diet: it is a different identity. Someone who becomes an athletic person doesn't diet; they simply don't eat junk. The difference is semantic but decisive.

Ibai himself has hinted at this: "I will continue training and posting content related to healthy habits." If he maintains that routine when there are no more kilos to lose, the case will be the exception. If he goes back to 150 in two years, it will be the norm. The bet is open.

What the body shows after losing 52 kg

There is an aspect almost no one discusses, which the material does cover: the physical appearance after such rapid loss. "Obese people who lose so many kilos in so little time end up looking like AIDS patients or terminally ill," someone writes. The description is derogatory, but points to a real phenomenon: skin does not retract at the same rate as adipose tissue, resulting in folds and sagging that do not disappear on their own. "There is no Ozempic look; he would be thinner and more saggy," another chimes in.

The discussion about whether he looks "uglier now thin than when he was fat" is pure noise, but hides a legitimate question: what happens to the body when subjected to a transformation of this magnitude in twelve months? The honest answer is that no one knows for sure, because each body reacts differently. What is known is that the rate of 4.3 kg per month is above what many doctors recommend, and that muscle mass is lost if not compensated with strength training. Hence the 240 workouts.

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The Ibai Llanos case is somewhat of a distorted mirror of a national obsession: the idea that the body is a project and health is a metric. He has lost 52 kg in a year, documented every step, and turned the process into content. If in two years he is still at 99, he will have won the bet. If he goes back to 150, he will have confirmed the prognosis of those who argue this is not a change, but a parenthesis. The scale, as always, will have the last word.